


The Ghostwriter

by cardassianfamilyvalues



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Book 54: The Beginning, spoilers for everything up to the mid-point of that book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 10:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardassianfamilyvalues/pseuds/cardassianfamilyvalues
Summary: After the war is won, Marco tries to monetize his personal brand.





	The Ghostwriter

The ghostwriter smiled at Marco. She had close-cropped hair and horn-rimmed glasses which she obviously thought made her look writerly. Little red Andalites dangled from her ears. Alien earrings were all the rage now. Marco had been skeptical when the designer insisted they make Andalites in all colors, but relented when he realized out how much more money they could make that way. Also, it pissed the Andalites off, which was always funny.

Maybe they could make little trinkets of exploding slugs. Bodies mangled by Taxxons. An Animorphs writhing from the pain of a morph gone wrong. A dollar a pop. Five cents for Marco. If he could sell sixty thousand units a year he could afford the upkeep for this pool.

He smiled to himself. What was he supposed to do, now that there was no ready audience for his sparkling wit? Whenever he cracked jokes about the old days, everyone around him winced and looked nervous, like they were afraid it’d be offensive if they laughed.

The ghostwriter apparently took Marco’s smile as directed at her, and said, “Hello, Marco. I’m Belinda Jennings—we spoke on the phone. I’m here to discuss with you the basics of this memoir—what you want the tone to be, what you want to focus on, what kind of image you want to project. All of us here are totally committed to preserving your wonderful voice and to accurately representing the story of the Earth resistance.”

_Sure you are_. “Thanks for coming. I’m very excited about this opportunity.”

“Now, before we start, I’d like to know what you want the basic structure of this memoir to be. Is it your whole life, or just the years spent in the war? Do you want this to be a manifesto, describing your vision for the world? Or a story of your life, an in-depth portrait of the man behind the gorilla? What’s your vision?”

Marco was used to people talking to him like he was just a product that he and whatever corporate entity were going to work together to develop. It was a nice feeling, honestly. That he could shape and reshape his life however he wanted.

“Well, I want to show people the good times, you know? It wasn’t all gloom and doom. We had some great experiences and we all bonded as people-slash-hawkboys-slash-great-blue-centaurs.”

Belinda nodded, looking a little confused. “Well, that’s certainly a different angle than most of the stories about the three of you that have come out, which would give us an edge.” Everyone always said _the three of you_. Jake, Cassie, Marco. No alien Ax, no crazy Tobias, no dead Rachel.

“Now, of course everyone’s going to be clamoring for the story on Jake. There’s been so much speculation and innuendo about the ‘real’ Jake lately. You know how things go—he’s had his honeymoon period, and now it’s time for the backlash. And since it looks like his own memoir is going to be delayed…”

Jake had been under contract for years now, with the same publishing company. He insisted on writing the whole thing himself, word by painstaking word. Jake was never the world’s greatest writer—actually, he was a terrible writer. Not to mention that he hadn’t gotten an education past the tenth grade. But Jake said he hated the idea of his life’s story being told by someone who wasn’t even there. Marco had offered to write it himself, under the title of _Fearless Leader: How The Stick Got Up My Ass_ , but Jake didn’t think that was funny.

Jake never thought anything was funny anymore. He was really committed to the whole dignified-war-hero thing, and it made him stiff and awkward. Marco noticed the way the generals looked at each other whenever Jake got hauled in for consulting. Jake would stand in the front in an ill-fitting suit and stammer through a PowerPoint on “Ten Ways Not to Get Yourself Horribly Killed in a Morph” or whatever, and the brass would frown with pity and condescension. Marco knew the Secretary of State’s nickname for Jake was “Baby’s First Eisenhower.” When Marco had first heard that, he’d wanted to go gorilla and see how that smug bastard coped with some actual physical danger. But he had to admit the guy had a point.

“…Anyway, something to keep in mind. But the real question we need to get out of the way is—what do you want to say about your mother?”

_Here it comes. Just like it always does._ “The truth. You know, my mom was great through all this. Just incredible.”

“Yes, well, of course—I think everyone was touched by her story of survival. But you know your actions against Visser One have always been a point of contention, and the publication of this memoir will just stir up the waters again.” Belinda pushed her glasses against her nose and fixed Marco with a hard-eyed glare that reminded him of Rachel in her bald eagle morph. “So what do you want to say?”

Marco shrugged. “What is there to say? I did what I had to do.” Marco wanted to rip the throat out of anyone who started in about his mother. The Earth press wouldn’t shut up about it, no matter how hard Marco’s PR team worked. There was a lot of cloying sentimentality and judgment from people who had no damn idea what they were talking about.

He’d say this for the Andalite press: they never tried to guilt-trip you.

Anyway, his mom and his dad and Jake and Cassie and Tobias and Ax all knew Marco had done what was right. Who gave a damn what anyone else thought?

Well, he did. Hence this stupid memoir. He remembered that awful pseudo-intellectual article he’d saw the other day. _A Modern-Day Oedipus_. His heart start pounding. “Look, I want everyone to know that it’s not like I _wanted_ to do it. I tried every other option. But I did what I could. And I did what was _necessary_.”

That was the double-edged sword. Either he was a cold-hearted bastard willing to murder his own mother, or he was a dithering child who wouldn’t do what had to be done.

The ghostwriter’s face was inscrutable, which just made Marco madder. She needed to understand; he needed to make sure she understood. “I was always the one who knew what needed to be done, okay? I wasn’t just some wisecracking sidekick who’s cashing in now. _I_ was the one who had the guts to admit when we had to do the hard, gross, horrifying thing. And then people have the _balls_ to judge me for making some money. I had to try to murder my mom, several times. I think that earned me a mansion in L.A. at the very least.”

Belinda raised her eyebrows. Well, screw her. Marco got up, shaking. “That’s enough for today, I think. Take whatever approach you want, okay? As long as it’ll sell. I have my eye on a new place in Beverly Hills.” He stalked off, leaving the ghostwriter sitting by the pool. He felt his ears burning. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper like that. It was never worth being honest. It just ended with him feeling embarrassed and stupid. And then people looked at you with that sadness in their eyes. _Poor guy, never got a chance to be a real teenager, so he’s throwing a tantrum now. Arrested development._ Fuck that.

He didn’t understand why he was the poster child for familicide anyway. Jake had chosen to kill his cousin _and_ his brother, and unlike Marco’s mom, both of them were actually dead. But Jake was the figurehead, and everyone’s misgivings about the conduct of the war got pushed on to the rest of them. Ax, being an alien and hard to identify with, got the worst of it, but Cassie took plenty of sniping (especially from people angry about her environmental initiatives), and Tobias got an awful lot of crap because he wasn’t around to speak for himself.

Neither Rachel nor Jake ever got any blame, though. Rachel was safe as a martyr. Marco smiled to himself as he imagined what Rachel would’ve done to someone who’d called her “a beautiful angel gone too soon.” Nobody seemed able to see past her good looks and her gender and her age to see the warrior princess she really was.

Marco wondered if he’d be able to get Lucy Lawless to play Rachel in the movie adaptation of his memoir. Rachel would’ve liked that.

Anyhow. His advisors were right. He needed to get this memoir out there, control the narrative, before all the grimy little details got leaked and the press could twist his story any way they wanted. After all, he was Marco. Marco, the commercial one, the flippant one, the ruthless one. The one who’d let his mother plunge to her death. The one who was responsible for making the Animorphs into a brand name. Well, he’d come up with the name in the first place, after all.

_After all these years_ , Marco thought, _the least I can do for myself is make Spielberg direct the movie._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a fan of 'Animorphs' since I was a kid but this is my first time writing/posting fanfic for it. Comments and critiques very welcome!


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